Street names set to toast brewing history of new development

Published on Friday 26 March 2010 09:37

THE Capital's brewing heritage is to be celebrated on the site of the former Fountain Brewery with a series of new streets named in its honour.

McEwan's, Scottish Courage and Younger's are among the famous names that will appear on street signs within the Springside development.

The idea is to celebrate brands produced or bottled at the former Scottish & Newcastle brewery over its 150-year history.

The new walkways – which will link Dundee Street into Caledonian Crescent and out to Haymarket – are due to be opened next week. A ring road within the scheme is also set to open next week.

Among the main new street and walkway names are McEwan Square, Younger Steps, Courage Gardens and Melvin Walk.

Ali Afshar, director of AMA Homes, one of the Springside consortium partners, said: "I think, because the site was a brewery, this was a good way to go. These names were prominent Edinburgh families and some of the wealth creators of the past."

Nearly three-quarters of the 79 flats that have been completed on the site have now been sold and developers are now to press ahead with plans to fit out more than 140 flats within the next 18 months.

The sales include a block purchase of 16 flats by the Edinburgh University Settlement, a charity which will lease the flats to visiting professors and other academics at the university.

A new 318-bedroom student housing development, operated by a firm called iQ Edinburgh, has been built on the site and will get its first tenants this summer.

However, developers now admit that the wider 9.5 acre scheme – which still includes a massive central gap site – has fallen at least two years behind schedule and will now not be complete until 2016 at the earliest.

Mr Afshar said that despite progressing more slowly than expected, sales have picked up in recent months.

He said: "You can never say you're happy, but we have made a commitment to deliver this development and we have never wavered from it.

"We have made sure that we will deliver what we want eventually, but the timescales will be longer than we planned."

Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart councillor Gordon Buchan said: "Given the history of the site, it seems quite appropriate to remind people of its past. The council has a policy of doing that with street names in other parts of the city, so it's appropriate to do it here."

The site's history goes back to the construction of the brewery by William McEwan in 1856. The brewer's sister married Alloa brewer James Younger and one of their sons, William Younger, joined his uncle's business then became manager in 1886.

In 1907, William McEwan & Co bought Alexander Melvin & Co, which ran the Boroughloch Brewery. Scottish Brewers was created in 1931 following the merger of William McEwan & Co and William Younger & Co, and later became Scottish Courage and latterly Scottish & Newcastle.